


1933

by moon_custafer



Series: The Bureaucracy of the Otherworld Was Surprisingly Generous When It Came to Transportation [1]
Category: Dr. Mabuse (Movies), Dr. Mabuse: Der Spieler (1922), M (1931), Norse Religion & Lore, Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933)
Genre: Gen, Nazi Germany, Psychopomps, hurt/comfort sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-11
Updated: 2018-03-11
Packaged: 2019-03-29 22:22:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13936632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moon_custafer/pseuds/moon_custafer
Summary: The Inspector realized that all the times he’d imagined this moment, he’d somehow expected dramatic music —Don Giovanni! A cenar teco m'invitasti,most likely, or Mussorgsky’s “St. John’s Eve” — but there was only the wind rushing by the windows.





	1933

_“You know that one, Müller? That’s from **Die Walküre**. Those are the girls who carry dead police inspectors directly up to heaven from the Alexanderplatz with a ‘Hey ho.’ On horseback.”_  
_“Horseback?”_  
_“Certainly. Expenses won’t allow for a car.”_

* * *

  
It was two in the morning, and Chief Inspector Lohmann was leaning against a lamppost and bleeding.

He wondered who’d sent the assassin. Thanks to the newspapers and their incessant coverage of his department’s more lurid cases, everyone in Berlin knew how late he worked; so following him as he departed his office, long after the streets had emptied for the night, might have been anyone’s plan.  
He’d made as many enemies in the government as in the underworld; but he’d have expected the former, even this new regime, to try pushing him into retirement before they reached for their guns.

Lohmann also wondered why the man hadn’t put a bullet between his eyes; and had fled while he yet lived, after having fired two closely-spaced shots into his torso. Both must have missed his heart — he could still feel it pounding. He kept his hand pressed over his chest, hoping to stop the blood. Not much help, of course, if it was running out exit wounds in his back, but he couldn’t feel any wetness there, and he thought he might take the bet that his figure was too thick for the small-caliber bullets to have passed completely through. Perhaps the idea was to make an example of him by a slow and lingering death? Or perhaps his current antagonists simply weren’t as efficient as the late Mabuse.

At any rate, the priority at the moment was to survive, if possible. The station lay behind him. Striving to ignore the cold ache that was beginning to settle into his shoulder, he unfolded the detailed map of the city and its neighbourhoods that was always ready behind his eyes.  
There was a late-night café a mere block away, the “Blue Room.” Owned by the gangs, of course, but the customers would hardly sit by and watch a man die, and the staff wouldn’t want the bad publicity.

Then he recalled that the Blue Room had had, among its clientele, “people who practice unnatural sex acts,” and was closed down.

The next nearest establishment had been popular with trade unionists, and was currently closed for repairs.

There was hardly a friendly late-night bar left, between the vice squad’s newfound efficiency and the enthusiastic amateurs who used their fists to shut down clubs whose customers they didn’t approve of. He wondered which of the two approaches would win out in the end.

Lohmann swung himself unsteadily around the lamppost until he was turned back the way he’d come, and began a lurching trudge back towards the station, with something of the instinct of a wounded animal crawling for its burrow. He grimaced at the comparison. _Perhaps_ , he thought, _some officer will mistake me for a drunk and stop me; then at least I could make my report and get help._ He lurched forth. _One foot, yes, then the other, that’s good._ Normally he was active, though not light-footed, but the strength was beginning to leave his big body.

A car motor; a powerful one with a smooth, deep purr. A Mercedes-Benz pulled up beside him, and the driver got out. She was a woman: a pretty, athletic-looking girl in some kind of driver’s kit. Was this part of their plan – wound him, then send a honey-trap in the guise of a good Samaritan?

She said not a word, however, as she helped Lohmann -- heaved him, really -- into the car’s back seat, as though he was no weight at all. Only when she was once again behind the wheel did she observe:  
“You were later than I expected. We’ll have to ride like the Devil to make up the time.”  
He was unsure how to reply to that, or even if a reply was expected. Eventually he asked: “Is it all right if I smoke, miss?”  
“If you wish,” said the driver carelessly, “but roll down the window.”

The breeze created by their speed was colder than the still air of the streets had been; it cleared the ache that had begun to muffle his head. The Benz was amazingly swift — he felt that the whole world was falling away beneath the car’s tires. Patting down his rumpled waistcoat for a cigar and matches, Lohmann suddenly realized he’d removed his hand from over the bullet-holes; but they were not bleeding like they had been.

It occurred to him that there was a probable reason for this.

“Am I dead?” he asked, with forced nonchalance. In the rear-view mirror, the driver’s reflection glanced up:  
“Near enough for us to be having this conversation.”  
“It’s not yet certain, then?”  
“Are you afraid?”

The Inspector realized that all the times he’d imagined this moment, he’d somehow expected dramatic music — _Don Giovanni! A cenar teco m'invitasti,_ most likely, or Mussorgsky’s “St. John’s Eve” — but there was only the wind rushing by the windows.  
Was he afraid? If he said yes, he might not fall within her department; but where would that leave him? If he said no, how could he be sure it was not a lie? Somehow he knew she would not be lied to.

  
“I’m a detective, not a warrior. I might be killed in the course of my duty; but I would prefer to close the case.”  
He saw her smile in the mirror, a little white sliver like the crescent moon.  
“Do you wish to live until you’ve avenged yourself?”  
“I wish to live until I’ve seen justice done.” The driver laughed, and there was something of a raven’s croak in the sound.  
“You would have to live until the end of the world. Is that your wish?” Lohmann, who was not unfamiliar with old tales, shuddered:  
“No!”  
“Then what is?”  
Lohmann thought.

  
“Let me live long enough to report the attack,” he said at last, “and then you may take me wherever you choose.”  
The valkyrie nodded, and instantly pulled up in front of the police station, as though they’d been headed there all along. Lohmann returned his unlit cigar to his waistcoat pocket as she got out and opened the back door for him.  
“Until next time,” he said, climbed out of the car, and nearly slumped to the ground as his bullet-wounds started flowing again.

* * *

 “The old man made it four blocks, back to the police station?”  
“Yes, and gave a full report before he collapsed. Not that it’ll likely help — everyone knows who ordered it, and we can’t touch them, not in this political climate.”  
“Will they try again?”  
“Won’t have to. The doctors say the bullets missed his heart, and they were only .22s — trying not to be too obvious, I guess — but one of them hit the liver. Internal bleeding. They’ve taken him to hospital, but I wouldn’t put any money on him living past noon.”  
“Poor bastard.”  
“Yes.”  
“Wonder if you should put in for a transfer, yourself. You’ve got a wife, haven’t you?”

* * *

 “You waited out front?” The valkyrie raised an eyebrow as she stepped out of the Mercedes-Benz.  
“Died five minutes ago in surgery,” Lohmann shrugged. “I doubt they could stop you at the front desk, but I didn’t want to put you to the trouble of coming in and looking for me. Given that we’re already, as you said before, running late.” He glanced back at the hospital building. “It’s in the hands of my colleagues now. Will it do any good?”  
“They won’t catch your murderers, if that’s what you’re asking.”  
“They’ll kill again.”  
“More than you can possibly imagine.”  
The Inspector swore.  
“Then what has been the point of my life, woman?”  
“You’ve stopped some evil in the past. This particular battle, you lost. It won’t always be so.”  
Lohmann cocked his head at the future tense.  
“Where exactly is it you’re taking me?”  
“You said you weren’t a warrior. Maybe we need detectives too. Get in, Inspector, or do I have to manhandle you again?”

He hesitated, glancing up and down the quiet street in the morning sunshine:  
“All right. But may I ride up front this time?”  
“I can see you’re going to be trouble.” The valkyrie closed the rear car door and opened up the front passenger-side door. As the Inspector climbed in, he asked:  
“I take it — from the car — that where we’re going isn’t going to be all mist, or... meadows of asphodel?”  
“Would you rather it were? No, I’m quite serious. We’d like you to feel at home.”  
The Inspector gave a short laugh.  
“No, I think I’d prefer to see what comes. You did say you wanted a detective?”  
The valkyrie was silent for a moment.  
“You’ve seen a great deal of human wickedness,” she began, keeping her eyes on the road ahead. “There is evil beyond the human as well. And there are some human souls that will not rest in death.”

Lohmann thought of Hans Beckert — he at least had been human, horribly human — and then he thought of Mabuse, whose mind had acted through others even before his own body had failed; and Dr. Baum… he still didn’t know what to make of that lost soul.  
“We’ve got our work cut out for us, then.”  
He felt the strange but unshakeable impression that the car’s engine, the woman at the wheel, and himself were notes in a chord.

On their way out of the city, they passed the ruins of the Reichstag.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I still haven’t watched Babylon Berlin, but as soon as I heard of it, I imagined someone writing a crossover with Fritz Lang’s early works — however, after thinking it over, there’s too much overlap between the narratives: given that they’re set in the same city, the same time period, and involve the same police department fictionalized to slightly different degrees, any attempt to combine them is likely to run into duplication problems. So here’s a Chief Inspector Lohmann story instead.  
> Neighbourhood geography kept a bit vague as a work-around, as I had trouble finding specific names and locations for real period Berlin night spots that suited the story.
> 
> ETA March 17 — added a few more lines of dialogue I thought of after the original post, and changed a few instances of “Kommisar” to “Inspector” for consistency.


End file.
